Look Up Portsmouth will be held over the weekend of 9 and 10 September, and promises to fill Portsmouth with colour by creating large and small scale murals and art installations across the city.
Residents and visitors will be able to watch internationally acclaimed artists work alongside established and emerging creatives to turn the city into a permanent, colour filled, street art gallery.
Find out who is involved on the Look Up Portsmouth website.
Portsmouth City Council is supporting the Look Up festival by agreeing to include council housing blocks and walls to be considered as part of the festival.
Charles Dickens ward councillors have agreed to invest £10,000 from their CIL Neighbourhood Fund to support the festival. This will then be match-funded by the council in order to secure a £30,000 investment from Arts Council England.
Cllr Steve Pitt, Leader of the Council with a responsibility for culture, said:
“It’s so important that we support creativity in the city, and we’re always looking for opportunities to work with partner organisations like Articulate Sage.
This primarily Arts Council-funded festival is set to create a lasting legacy in the city that will inspire people for years to come and put Portsmouth on the international art map.
The use of our council-owned properties also ensures that art will be accessible in communities across the city, bringing street art to new audiences and involving our residents in some ground-breaking decisions.”
Cllr Darren Sanders, Cabinet Member for Housing and Tackling Homelessness said:
“Art can brighten up an area if it’s done right. Yet too often, ordinary people feel it’s not for them. The key thing – as we have recently done with the Pompey Pelican mural on Arundel Street – is to give people living on council estates a real say in whether they want it and, if they do, want they want.
By applying those principles to the Look Up Festival, we give artists and local people a chance to have something that is long-lasting and a real boost to the built environment. Art and culture should be for the many, not the few.
Our design service already works with schools and other public buildings in the city to include artwork that inspires our residents, and we continue to look for opportunities to add public artwork to as many of our buildings as possible, creating access to art in communities across the city that residents may not otherwise have.”
Great ideas and projects that support the development of the area can apply for Neighbourhood CIL funding from the council.
The CIL Neighbourhood Fund comes from the Community Infrastructure Levy fund, which allows local authorities to raise funds from developers who are undertaking new building projects in their area.
Projects that have received funding have demonstrated that there is community support for the project and are accessible to all sectors of the community. Local organisations with great ideas and projects can also apply for CIL Neighbourhood funding.
For more information visit portsmouth.co.uk/CIL